Open AccessNew records of leeches of the genus Limnatis (Hirudinea, Praobdellidae) from the South Caucasus and Central Asia: phylogenetic relationships of Eurasian and African populations
Author(s) -
Serge Utevsky,
Youness Mabrouki,
Abdelkhaleq Fouzi Taybi,
Mair Huseynov,
А. А. Манафов,
Halyna Morhun,
O. Shahina,
G. Utevsky,
A. Kromenko,
Аndriy Utevsky
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
animal biodiversity and conservation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.39
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 2014-928X
pISSN - 1578-665X
DOI - 10.32800/abc.2022.45.0043
Subject(s) - genus , biology , central asia , arid , phylogenetic tree , zoology , east asia , old world , geography , ecology , china , archaeology , biochemistry , physical geography , gene
Leeches of the genus Limnatis Moquin–Tandon, 1827 infest mucous membranes of various mammals, including humans and domestic ungulates. The type species of the genus L. nilotica (Savigny, 1822) was initially thought to occur throughout the Western Palaearctic, from North Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia. It was later found that L. paluda (Tennent, 1859) is a widespread Western Asian species. However, the South Caucasus and vast areas of Central Asia have not been explored sufficiently in terms of leeches of the genus Limnatis. We recorded L. paluda from Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan for the first time. We also carried out the first molecular characterisation of L. nilotica herein. We found a deep genetic differentiation (8 %) between the Western Asian L. paluda and North African (Moroccan) L. nilotica based on their COI sequences. This finding corroborates a previous morphology–based hypothesis on their separate species assignments. The low genetic diversity of L. paluda is explained by the recent colonisation of arid landscapes of Western Asia.